The Rickhouse — Restaurant in Greenville

I have been a loyal customer to Rickhouse for quite some time. I went into the Restaurant recently... and needless to say I will never be going back. Online the Rickhouse advertises that they close at 11 pm on Friday and Saturday. They advertise this on Google, Facebook, their website, their property, and other online locations.

For this reason, I was surprised the other evening when the hostess informed me, in a rather hostile way, that they were closing at 8:45 pm for “social distancing”. I think taking precautions for covid-19 is well advised and responsible, but I do not believe this is the reason the Rickhouse closed at 8:45 pm. If the Rickhouse wants to maintain social distancing, then why have they not been closing at 8:45 pm throughout the entire pandemic? Why, in May or November of last year, when covid was raging and there was no vaccine, did the Rickhouse not close at 8:45 pm? I’ve eaten there during Covid and have never heard of this 8:45 rule. Why has the Rickhouse not updated their website, in all this time, to reflect the new hours? There needs to be consistency and transparency about operating hours.

This “change” in hours however is not what has provoked me to boycott Rickhouse.

When I inquired about the time change, rather than calmly explaining the restaurants reasoning for the change and explaining that it’s a new policy, the hostess took an abrasive hostile tone. With a very pointed attitude, she informed me that “since we are a privately owned restaurant and not a corporation, we can do whatever we want and close our doors anytime we want”. While I appreciated her little angry lesson on property law and corporate chains, a simple explanation of the change (when it began, why it was being instituted, why now vs. earlier in the pandemic) would have sufficed. Explaining simple details like these to customers in a polite way is not too much to ask for. It’s not too much to ask for a hostess to be polite and to not treat you like an child. I do not understand the extreme hostility over a simple question. If the restaurant indeed closes at 8:45 pm now, and that had been explained in a normal and neutral way, I would have simply noted it and returned before 8 pm next time. But I cannot support a restaurant who treats its loyal patrons like children and employs staff who address questions in such a hateful and distasteful way.

Advice to management: Maintain consistent policies (such as operating hours), OR inform customers (via online or in person) of changes and policy updates in a neutral or polite way. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to provide the strawberry blonde hostess(?) some basic guidelines on how to interact with patrons.

Advice to future customers: Do not ask questions. In the words of the hostess, eat at corporate establishments if you want consistency and...

This is my 3rd time trying The Rickhouse. First time was close to 10 years ago and second time was about 1 year ago. I had received a gift card so I figured we would have a nice Sunday dinner. Our waitress was very sweet and attentive. The food was some of the worst “fine dining” food I have ever eaten!! The bang bang shrimp appetizer was literally fried shrimp ( with no batter or breading) that was thrown in a bowl and gobs of sweet chili sauce ( which was cool temperature wise) was poured all over it. The shrimp itself was slightly warm still but the sauce was cool to room temperature. My husband and I immediately looked at each other in disbelief at how underwhelmed we were. Okay, so appetizer was definitely sub-par but I held out hope for our meals. I ordered the crab cake dinner which said it came with vegetables and a loaded baked potato. The baked potato was overcooked and doused in QUESO!! When I think of a loaded baked potato, I don’t think of queso as one of the toppings. It was the nastiest baked potato I have ever eaten. I could not continue to eat it and I tried to scrape the cheese off to get to the potato underneath. Vegetables were mostly string beans which were oily and just okay. The crab cake was nothing special whatsoever and had very little flavor. My husband got the red snapper with rice pilaf and asparagus. The rice pilaf was cold and hard from the minute his plate was set on the table. It also had a weird flavor to it that I just could not recognize. His fish was okay. Nothing that stood out about it. Just basic grilled fish. His asparagus was tough and hard to chew. For as much as they charge for their food, you would think it would at least make some kind of positive impression. I NEVER write restaurant reviews because I know everything can’t be to my liking. But NOTHING we had tonight was good!! Then, when we got the bill, I noticed that it said that if you pay with a credit card, they will charge you a 3% fee to help cover the costs of what they get charged for a customer to use a credit card. If you are a restaurant that charges $24-$48 an entree, for mediocre food at best, I wouldn’t think that a customer using a credit card would put much of a strain on your bottom line. I honestly have no idea how this place stays open. I have given it 3 tries and the last one was the worst. Needless to say, 3 strikes...

If I could give this place a -5 stars, I would. I never wrote a review when this happened but feel the need to. I hosted an event in their private room about 3 or so years ago. It was an event for domestic violence awareness. I was initially impressed with the opportunity to host it here since my husband and I frequently came for lunch and even had a birthday celebration dinner here for one of our kids. This quickly changed the day of my event. The decor was faulty ( They had little lanterns that didn’t light that I had to get batteries for. And some were broken) , During set up People walk back-and-forth taking garbage out and Staff was not as attentive as I was led to believe that they would be. The menu for the event was chosen prior and was only supposed to be around $600 for the food. We ended up having some additional guest and asked for simple items like pizza, etc., because they were children to be added. Because I was hosting the event, no one came to speak to me directly and made decisions to add food that I did not confirm. Instead of pizza or simple items, they gave us brisket Which was one of Highest priced item. Not chicken or or anything else that we had already had. I was told this after the fact of them bringing it out to serve and they presented it as non-negotiable. Express they had no other items to offer. We had expressed earlier that we could go and get pizza if they couldn’t assist. But was assured they could add something comparable. No ever came back to me to confirm decision food was placed as I was hosting and speaking on the topic. Needless to say my $600 cost Went to $1700. This event was a fundraiser to assist with domestic violence awareness. I feel that they took advantage of the opportunity and no one spoke specifically to me. When I attempted to rebut no one would speak to me and the person in charge along with the person that initially assisted us with the event booking was somehow no where to be found. Needless to say, we have NEVER and will not EVER Go back to this restaurant. All funds raised to assist with the cause suffered from the additional amount I had to kick out. No apologies or negotiations of the prices was ever done or extended by this restaurant. Never again. Poor ethics, poor management and...